


And the Heartless Wind Kept Blowing

by Heartshade



Series: Alone on a Valentines Day [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Injury, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, but it’s quite minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 13:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17407481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heartshade/pseuds/Heartshade
Summary: Tony and Nebula arrive at Earth and go to the Compound, where they see a few familiar faces and are forced to admit who they have lost.





	And the Heartless Wind Kept Blowing

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> Sorry it’s taken I while for me to post this! I’ve been doing my mock exams and I’ve had barely any time to write! I hope you like it!

No. No, please! Don’t leave me! I can’t be alone again, please just stay with me! Stay Loki, please! Please!

‘We’re here.’

Nebula’s voice snaps Tony out of his nightmare with the force of a freight train. He jumps in shock, then groans in pain as the sudden movement strains his wound. Nebula glances over at him with what looks like concern before turning back to the planet in front of her. She had seen a lot of his nightmares over the past few days, as well as having to listen to his various moans of pain, and after sharing their different, but often surprisingly similar issues they had actually grown quite close.

‘I’ve activated shields in case they react badly, but I need to know where the safest place is to land.’

Analysing the earth from their position, Tony manages to pinpoint the vague area of America where the Compound is, and determining that that is probably where the rest of the Avengers would have gathered if they survived, he points her towards it.

‘Just go down in that direction, I’ll be able to be more specific as we get closer.’

Nodding, Nebula angles the ship towards the area that Tony motioned, before accelerating towards it rapidly. Tony’s just about to give her another signal when a voice begins to crackle through his broken helmet’s speakers.

‘Hello? Boss, is that you?’

Tony recognised the voice instantly, cackling with glee as he reaches for the helmet. 

‘Fri, is that you?’

‘Affirmative Boss.’

Throwing his head back in delight Tony begins chattering frantically to the AI, fiddling with his helmet’s wires at the same time until her voice begins to broadcast through the ship’s speakers instead. Nebula jerks back in alarm at the unexpected change.

‘Hey Fri, can you still hear me?’ Tony asks, hopefully surveying the ship’s displays as the AI finishes integrating.

‘Affirmative Boss. Would you like me to take you to the Compound?’

Tony grins. ‘That would be fantastic! Thanks Fri.’ He can almost the smile in her voice as she replies.

‘Glad to help, Boss.’

Nebula eyes the console suspiciously as the ship turns on it own and begins to steer itself to the Compound. Catching her look, Tony grins apologetically and explains the AI to her.

‘So she is a sentient being that you created in a computer?’ Nebula summarises at the end.

Tony shrugs, ‘essentially yeah.’

At this point the Compound is in view, and Tony can see a few figures waiting outside. God he hopes Rhodey, Pepper and Happy made it. He doesn’t know what he would do if he lost any more family.

The ship lands and Tony forces himself to rise, his wound screaming with pain as he does so. Nebula follows him out into the sun, where he is immediately tackled by someone.

Tony yelps in pain as Rhodey hugs him close, before grinning at him as he releases his death grip.

‘Nice to see you missed me.’ Tony chuckles, rubbing at his side.

‘Yeah, well consider that the last hug because I’m now angry at you.’ At Tony’s confused look Rhodey sighs. ‘You flew off into space with no warning but a last minute phone call to Pepper. We thought you were dead.’

Tony chuckles. ‘Not quite, but I do think I should get to the med bay ASAP. There’s kind of a hole in my side.’ Rhodey immediately begins freaking out at that, causing Tony to laugh. Suddenly he remembers what he wanted to ask. ‘Pepper, is she...’ Rhodey’s eyes turn sad as he shakes his head softly. Tony manages to hold it together, but the fresh wave of sadness at losing Pepper too makes it difficult. Most of the other figures seemed to have gone back inside, but Bruce and Thor walk over and help Rhodey take Tony to the med bay, with Nebula trailing behind cautiously. Noticing her silence, Tony introduces her.

‘Oh by the way, this is Nebula. She forced me to get on the ship and flew us here.’ Rhodey nods at her gratefully, while Thor immediately begins talking to her about her race, which are apparently called Luphomoids. When they reach the med bay Bruce starts taking readings and sorting Tony’s wound out at once, while Tony himself forces himself to smile and joke as they question him about what happened. Nebula keeps eying him suspiciously, clearly unnerved by his cheerful act when he spent most of the journey in a state of depression. Thankfully she doesn’t comment.

Just as Tony is recounting Thanos’ arrival at Titan, the door opens, and Tony almost has a heart attack. In come strolling Rogers, Romanov, and the rest of their little buddies who presumably survived the snap. Tony’s breath immediately begins to come in gasps as his chest constricts, and he finds himself grabbing at his arc reactor as his heart rate skyrockets, to the point that alerts start coming up on the monitor that Bruce attached. Nebula notices his panic, and steps in between him and the Rogues defensively, glaring at them as she does so. Rhodey joins in with the angry stares, before crouching to calm Tony down. He knows he shouldn’t be surprised, this is the logical place for them to come after all, but the shock of seeing them is still there. Thankfully the attack doesn’t last long, he’s had far worse, but even so it has certainly killed any relaxed mood that might have been developing. 

Thankfully Steve waits until he’s calmed down to talk. 

‘It’s good to see you’re ok Tony. We thought we’d lost you.’

Tony just glares at him. Steve continues anyway.

‘We know you must have fought hard on Titan, but now we have you back we can start to plan our next move. We need to-‘

‘Stop, ok, just stop.’ Tony interrupts, already pissed off after just 5 seconds of conversation. ‘I don’t even know what happened here yet, I’ve still got half a gaping wound in my side, so if we could save the whole planning thing for later that would be excellent.’

Steve looks slightly shocked by his response, but to be honest Tony thinks he should be delighted that Tony didn’t just kick him out the building as soon as he saw him. So he decides to go back to his conversation with the others. 

‘So where was I-‘

‘Wait, we need to ask you something.’ Damn he recovered quickly.

‘What?’ Tony replies, turning to glare at him.

‘There were some other people who went missing before the snap. FRIDAY thought they might be with you, but wouldn’t say anything else. A Dr Stephen Strange and a Peter Parker. Strange makes sense, cause Bruce saw you follow him to the spaceship, but we don’t get the Parker one. Do you know where either of them are?’

Tony just stares for a second in shock. His brain desperately tries to work out how to play it off, but his mouth just won’t respond. Rhodey places a hand on his shoulder gently, clearly worried.

Tony clears his throat, but his voice still sounds raw. ‘They were both there, yeah.’ He responds slowly, trying to build the courage to finish it, ‘but they-‘ his voice breaks, and he swallows again, trying to hide the roiling agony inside. Oh god, Peter. ‘They were taken by the snap.’ He strains out, before hanging his head and forcing himself to take deep breaths to prevent any potential tears. Rhodey keeps rubbing his shoulder.

Sensing his emotion, Steve backs off, nodding before leaving the room. Tony keeps forcing himself to breath. If only Loki were her- Loki! Thor didn’t know, he thought Loki died on that ship. If he told him, would he be getting his hopes up, just to crush them again when he told him about the snap? He’s still deliberating, when the doors open again, only for them to reveal this time a raccoon. A raccoon that was talking. Well, more shouting to be honest. Tony decides to just not comment. 

‘Nebula what the hell?! Where have you been, I thought you fucked off to assassinate Thanos! Good job with that by the way!’ The raccoon advances on Nebula, who simply stares down at him, emotionless. ‘Where are the others by the way? I can’t find them, and they’re clearly not with you, so-‘

‘They’re dead.’

This stops the raccoon short, a look of horror on his face.

‘What?’ His voice is aggressive, but broken at the same time. Tony feels a swell of pity. Deciding to leave the conversation to the two of them, he motions to Thor, Rhodey and Bruce, before rising stiffly and walking out. Thor murmurs a sorry to the raccoon as he passes. 

‘I’m just gonna grab some medical supplies, I’ll be back in a minute.’ Bruce says quietly, head bowed in sorrow. Rhodey murmurs about how he needs to check the others aren’t acting up, before walking out as well. Tony nods, before glancing up at Thor and swallowing. Fuck, this wasn’t going to be easy.

‘Hey, Thor?’

‘Yes Tony.’ Oh Jesus, this was awful.

‘I um, I just thought you should know that, well... Loki, he, he survived when you thought he died...’ Tony glances back at Thor, his heart breaking at the bright hopeful look in his eyes. He felt like shit. ‘But, well, when Thanos snapped he, um, he-‘ Tony breaks then, tears pouring from his eyes in anguish. His Peter, his Loki, they were gone. He couldn’t save them, and now he had let down not only them but their families. Thor, May... Oh god, May.

Thor doesn’t say anything for a while, before he responds, his voice cracking slightly.

‘Thank you for telling me Tony. I can see that it has upset you. While I’m not sure why, I can see that Loki meant something to you. If you ever need to talk, I will be more than willing to listen, and to talk also.’

Tony is amazed by how calm he is. If their places were reversed he would be on the floor by now, screaming his throat out in grief. But then, Thor had already known that Loki was ‘dead.’ This just meant he died in a different way. Tony swallows.

‘Thanks. I, um, I’d like that.’ He manages to gasp out, wiping his face in an attempt to hide the tear marks. 

Thor manages a small smile, before he reaches a hand out and helps Tony to sit while they wait for Bruce to return. Tony was in agony, but at least now he had someone to share it with.


End file.
